Bankruptcy Data

May 2013 Bankruptcy Filing Numbers Continue Trend

06/05/13

The latest data from Epiq Systems are available, and they confirm my estimate last month of just over 1.0 million bankruptcy filings for the 2013 calendar year. Epiq Systems reports 96,430 bankruptcy filings for the month of May. Spread over the 22 business days in the month, that is a daily filing rate of 4,383.

[more]

Bankrupt Churches

02/18/13

My colleague, Professor Pamela Foohey, has just posted a paper on SSRN about religious organizations that have filed chapter 11. While the Roman Catholic dioceses bankruptcies have grabbed a lot of attention, Foohey identifies 509 other cases filed by faith-based organizations from 2006 - 2011. The amount of work in this study is impressive.

[more]

Today's Bankruptcy Statistics Challenge

01/04/13

A friend wrote me and pointed out that Chief Justice Roberts's annual report noted that bankruptcy filings had declined in "89 of the 90 bankruptcy courts." He wondered which court was the exception, and for that sort of information, he wrote me.

[more]

Undocumented Debtors

12/17/12

Immigration issues continue to be a major political football, and the work of Jean Braucher, Bob Lawless, and Dov Cohen on race in bankruptcy garnered front-page NY Times attention this year. This makes the publication of Chrystin Ondersma's paper titled Undocumented Debtors particularly timely.

[more]

Crystal Ball Department: Bankruptcy Filings to Rise in a Few Years

11/02/12

Good times in the economy mean goods times a few years later for bankruptcy professionals who deal with consumer cases.  We saw this from the mid-1990s through the 2000s. The last big party in the bankruptcy world was in 2010 (1.5 million non-business cases filed!), a few years after the end of the last debt binge came to a crashing halt starting in 2007.  The reverse is also true.  Bad times in the economy make for fewer bankruptcy filings a few years later, which is what we have been seeing lately.

[more]